Letter to Ke Qingshi
(15 November 1959)

Comrade Qingshi:

This document[1] is extremely good, please have a look. If any provincial Party secretaries have not yet left, please pass it on for them to have a look. Then, hand it to Comrade Wang Jiaxiang[2] for a look. Then, hand it to Comrade Jiang Hua[3] for a look. Finish reading it within two days, and have Jiang Hua return it to me. I plan to request the Central Committee to forward it nationwide.

Mao Zedong
15 November, 1:30 a.m.

--- Notes

[1] Possibly refers to a material from the state-operated Fangqiuhu Farm in Anhui Province on raising pigs by grazing on fodder crops. The material stated that after a bumper wheat harvest the previous year, Fangqiuhu Farm sowed 1001 mu of mung beans. Due to drought, the seedlings emerged unevenly, and a poor harvest was anticipated. In light of the relatively large number of pigs being raised and the difficulty in sourcing feed at the time, the farm’s Party organization decided to adopt the method of grazing pigs on the green mung bean seedling fields. After 50 days of grazing, the results were good, specifically demonstrated in the following: 1. Increased field yield and pig weight gain. When wheat was planted again on the grazed fields, the yield per mu increased by 75 jin compared to fields with the same cultivation level but without grazing, due to the abundance of pig manure; at the same time, the live pigs grazed on the green seedling fields gained weight rapidly, increasing by 1.2 times compared to penned pigs. 2. Feed saved for pigs, labor saved for fields. The grazed pigs required no other feed, and the practice of grazing also saved labor for transporting fertilizer. 3. Savings in feed processing and management costs. The material finally pointed out that the method of directly grazing pigs on sown fodder to fertilize the fields is suitable for areas with abundant land, sparse population, and poor soil. Anhui Province was actively selecting appropriate locations at the time for further experimentation. On 25 December 1959, Issue No. 2944 of *Internal Reference* compiled and printed by the Xinhua News Agency carried a report titled “Fangqiuhu Farm Achieves Good Results by Raising Pigs through Grazing on Sown Fodder.”


[2] Wang Jiaxiang, then serving as a Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.


[3] Jiang Hua, then serving as First Secretary of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee.